Speak, Nerd, and Enter!

Jill Pantozzi | May 3rd, 2017

Your new open thread to discuss anything going on that I haven’t already posted about on The Nerdy Bird!

Don’t worry, I’ve got a separate post coming up for The Defenders trailer in just a few minutes [Edit: here it is]. Can we discuss how wild May is going to be for television? We’ve got: Sense8 – May 5th, Master of None – May 12th, Downward Dog (starring Fargo’s Allison Tolman) – May 17th, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt – May 19th, the special 12 Monkeys event – May 19th, and Twin Peaks – May 21th.

I truly don’t get how they can’t justify just putting it out as a mint vanilla shake and leaving out the green food coloring. It’s a wonderful flavor (that would likely kill me if I drank it as often as I really wanted to).

I hate to bring this up, but I need somewhere to rant. After the inauguration I decided to give The MotherShip six months to stop having so many purely political, non-geek news related articles before I would cancel my subscription. I lasted just over three. I understand that news is important, but I get enough of it at work and in my leisure time I want nothing to do with it. The TMS I fell in love with was a fun guide to geek girl culture, not the rage-inducing political blog with a side of “how dare they do this in our comics/TV shows/movies!” outrage it is today. It’s been weeks since I checked TMS every day, and then earlier this week I logged on again and decided I was done. On Tuesday (ironically enough the anniversary of the day I subscribed) I went to the subscription page to cancel my account, and that’s when I realized something I’d missed—there’d been some kind of change in the subscription service a couple months back and my account hadn’t renewed! So I unintentionally saved myself ten bucks, but that doesn’t make it any less sad—TMS has been my favorite site for years and I have a lot of friends there, but short of checking the TWST through Disqus I think I’m done. Again, I know all this stuff is important, but for my own mental health I need something TMS stopped giving me a long time ago: escapism—somewhere I can go to relax and read about and discuss silly, unimportant stuff like comics and TV shows without needing to get a prescription for blood pressure meds before I’m thirty.

: / I’m glad Jill has continued along the same path here…I just wish there was more moola in it. I’d fund the Hell out of The Nerdy Bird if I could. I’d want to work for a company like what TMS was… XD Although it would be a dying aspiration and not actually a place that WOULD hire my particular brand of butt head. o.o Sigh.

Yeah, some larger entity with better resources that would have still let us do what we did best. Something like Nerdist (owned by Legendary Entertainment) would not be a good fit, the content is too similar.

Seconded and I’ll make the same vow with my own as-yet-and-most-likely-due-to-some-mistake-unrewarded-lottery winnings.

>_> Hey, um. o.o Unrelated. But. I have a wheelchair question. >_>’ You two are the only folks I know who a) use chairs b) are nerdy enough to possibly have an answer. There’s a sort of time limit on this and I should have asked much, much sooner. And yet I still think I should be polite and ask if I can ask before I ask, you know?

Let’s say you’re a scientist-bordering-on-evil-genius, like Tony Stark. You’re unable to walk unassisted whatsoever. So, what would you use in a mad scientist setting? You want to maintain upper body strength, so you could go with something athletic like Barbara Gordon, and that would be good for maneuvering in tight quarters I’d think, but I’d also assume the low back would be Hell over prolonged periods of time. So, I’m at a loss. I’ve tried Googling scientists in wheelchairs and all I get is Stephen Hawking pictures.

Edited to add, as I self-ramble: most of the Person At Work images are of automatic chairs. >_> Should it be automatic? Maybe, upper body strength be damned, wheeling yourself around all day in a lab would get tedious? Shit, is this an opinion thing and the answer is there is no right answer?

Too surreal. I went to disabled kids summer camp every year in my youth, and never once did anyone have any reason, medical or otherwise, to go swimming without getting out of their ‘chair. I’m guessing either photoshop or purposely staged for some good ol’ fashioned “uplifting” inspiration porn.

General rule of thumb is if you have the strength for a manual ‘chair you should use one to keep it up. Exact style depends on type and level of impairment (i.e. how much trunk control you have for paraplegics), length of time you’ve had the disability (newbies will have a stock collapsible model off the rack) and how comfortable the user is with the lifestyle (bitter about now being “bound” vs born that way and never had to overcome the trauma of injury).

I’m biased toward manuals. I’ll rent a motorized for Renaissance faires, but for everyday life I need maneuverability instead of the raw power to get over rocks and tree roots. Real world example: I can get around a cramped bookstore, with difficulty, in my manual. In a big motorized it’d be impossible. Though like I said, I’m biased—if I had to use something motorized all the time I know I’d adapt and learn all the tricks, just like I did with my manual.

Since you said mad scientist/Tony Stark, there are manual chairs with motor assists, kind of like those strength-enhancing exoskeletons the military is always working on. But you’ve got to keep weight in mind for a manual—all sorts of guns and lasers and rocket boosters add pounds to a titanium frame, and when you’re pushing yourself you really want the thing to be as light as possible.

Yes a higher back is better for relaxing, but most high-tech manuals have very short backs for increased shoulder movement—which is a big deal when you’ve got to reach back to grab the hand rim for a big push.

Yes, wheeling yourself all day does get tiring, but again it depends on the user. I’ve built up a good bit of stamina over the decades, so while most of my days are spent stationary at a desk I don’t have any real problem zipping around say a con for a weekend. Theme parks or somewhere big like that are a bit more exhausting, obviously.

Yesss! That’s what I needed. Some personal opining and a bit of detail to ponder. Thank you!

There’s a character that hasn’t gotten that much attention yet in my webcomic, but she’s going to be present on upcoming pages and I wanted to give her a bit more detail this round. Her hero theme is Steampunkish and has these wide bell-shaped dresses that are mechanical spider legs rather than whale bone or metal hoops. But in the next few pages, she’ll be out of costume and, I figure, no matter how much you’re in to steampunk, you’re not punkin’ all the time. At least…I hope not.

So, something that fits her big brain rather than her fan heart. Something futuristic is good. I’ll look at those designs, consider what you said, and then have faith in the artist.

Something you see in the Oracle illustration that I didn’t bring up before is camber—the angle of the big wheels. More camber means more maneuverability, which is why sports chairs for basketball and racing and the like have so much. The problem with that is it increases the width of the chair, which means it has more trouble fitting in tight spaces. Personally I have practically no camber because my body is so, uh, “well proportioned” that making the chair any wider than it already is means it wouldn’t fit through some of the doors in my ’50s-era house…

I know exactly how you feel. I favorited the Disqus page so I can browse TWST a while back and barely ever look at the main page or any articles. I don’t remember the last time I even looked at the TWST article itself. Still looking for the right replacement site, though. Nerdy Bird is great, obviously, I just am used to having three big sites to browse daily, and Comics Alliance closed and io9 isn’t up to its former glory anymore.

ComicBookMovie.com is pretty good for, uh, comic book movie news—you just have to avoid the comments section. I still check io9 but it’s definitely not what it used to be. I’m pretty sure GeeksAreSexy.com is still pretty good for general news, but I’m at work and don’t want that URL showing up in my browser… ;)

Along with Defenders, which I’ve been excited for for a while, I’m excited for Sense8, Master of None and House of Cards, all hitting this month (Well, apart from Defenders). If I wasn’t somewhat busy already I’d have a month full of netflix :) well, I’ll probably still have a month full of Netflix if I’m being honest with myself.

While I wasn’t crazy about Danny in Iron Fist, at least his hair seems to look better this time around.

Reguardian the Garding of the Galaxy, I didn’t buy tickets, but I’m hoping to see it Thursday. Hopefully?

Today was a trailerpalooza! The Defenders! The Dark Tower! The Runaways! The Runaways looks good…The Defenders looks better…and The Dark Tower…seems to spend a lot of its time indoors, with a leftover VFX reel from Wanted, and Elba’s outfit looks way more drab and uninteresting with the Zack Snyder filter. I am…anxious.